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Length, position, and functions of inter-clausal Chinese–English code-switching in a bilingual novel

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Published/Copyright: November 1, 2022

Abstract

Based on a written Chinese–English code-switching corpus compiled from a Singaporean bilingual novel, this paper reports on the distribution of instances of inter-clausal code-switching in terms of their length, the distribution of the position of instances of inter-clausal code-switching in mixed sentences, and the pragmatic functions of inter-clausal code-switching of different lengths in different sentence positions. The study yields four results. First, the distribution in terms of length fits Zipf’s Law well, and bilingual speakers attempt to avoid lengthy inter-clausal code-switching in their communication. Second, the majority of inter-clausal code-switching appears in sentence boundary positions. Third, the major pragmatic functions of shorter or longer instances of inter-clausal code-switching are turn-opening, turn-closing, explicitness, and accuracy. Finally, instances of inter-clausal code-switching with medium clause lengths have two main functions, which are the conveying of irony and emphasis.


Corresponding author: Lin Wang, School of Foreign Languages, Zhejiang Gongshang University, No. 18, Xuezheng Street, Xiasha University Town, Hangzhou, 310018, China, E-mail:

Funding source: The Major Program of National Social Science Foundation of China

Award Identifier / Grant number: 18ZDA290

Acknowledgments

We thank Heng Chen for insightful comments on an earlier version of this paper.

  1. Research funding: This work is supported by the Major Program of the National Social Science Foundation of China (No. 18ZDA290).

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Received: 2020-11-07
Accepted: 2021-07-06
Published Online: 2022-11-01

© 2022 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

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